


Beyond the Red Drapes

by rhodrymavelyne



Category: The X-Files, Twin Peaks
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:00:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24629692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: What Annie found and felt beyond the red drapes, within the Black Lodge, and how she tried to warn Laura and save Dale.
Relationships: Annie Blackburn/Dale Cooper, Annie Blackburn/Fox Mulder, Annie Blackburn/Windom Earle, Dale Cooper/Caroline Earle/Windom Earle, Dale Cooper/Windom Earle, Donna Hayward/Laura Palmer, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully, James Hurley/Laura Palmer, Laura Palmer/Annie Blackburn
Kudos: 1





	Beyond the Red Drapes

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the boy Annie loved was Fox Mulder in this story. He didn't mean to break her heart, but his heart had already been taken away and she wasn't able to bring him back. I own neither Twin Peaks nor The X-Files, but both kidnap my imagination from time to time, taking it on surreal journeys. (wry grin) I haven't seen any of the recent episodes made years later, although I plan to.

Red drapes, a fall of crimson like blood gushing from my wrists surround me. They cut out the vision of sunlight caught in his hair, even as he runs away from me. 

“Not away,” she says. Her name is Laura Palmer. She was nothing more than a name, a smiling, pretty face in a picture, a dead girl, part of a tragedy hanging over Twin Peaks. More tragedy, there’s always more. Only Laura is warm and alive here. She’s holding my hand in a place beyond time while I relive a past I can never flee from. “He’s running towards them.”

Them. I can see them in a darkening sky. They’re the only light he’ll ever see. They’re reflected in his eyes, shining in his soul. He was only in Twin Peaks for a short time with his parents, long enough to break my heart, but he was never really there. 

“Fox!” I cry. I wave, try to get him to see me, to turn away from the lights. 

“I can’t stop, Annie.” He does turn around to regard me with somber eyes, but I can’t see myself within them. I don’t linger in his gaze, not like I linger in Dale’s, but Dale is driven, too, isn’t he? Driven to run, to pursue. “I’ve got to catch them. To catch him.” 

He turns away from me. A shadow falls over both of us, looming over the woods, the lake. It’s just a man, a man standing there smoking, but his shadow is everywhere, everywhere Fox Mulder goes, but it’s just a man. 

I stare at him, allowing it to dwindle and diminish. The man approaches, grinning, but it’s not the same man. This one is shorter, grinning as if the world was filled with amusing toys to play with. 

I know him. It’s Windom Earle, the man who pulled me beyond the drapes, into the circle of trees. He was wrong. Somehow I’d run from him in the circle. I’d fled into the drapes, into my own wounded heart, but he found me. He always finds me. 

“Caroline.” He says my name, caressing it with his voice, but it’s not mine. It’s never been mine. He sees Caroline whenever he sees Annie, for it will always be Caroline for Dale and himself. “I have to do it. Much as I love you, I have to give you to the Black Lodge, to teach him a lesson. To allow him to grow.” He approaches me with wet eyes and a death’s grin. “You love him, Caroline. How could you not?” He comes closer, keeps moving towards me, invading my space, invading all spaces. “How can you deny him this?” 

He’s close to me, inches away, just where he stood when he married Caroline. He takes me in his arms slowly, tenderly, embracing me as if he’d never let me go. 

Only he will let go. He always lets go. I feel him plunge the knife into me, cutting through fabric, penetrating my flesh, driving it in deep, releasing the red. It gushes free, bleeding out of me. 

“Annie!” I can hear Dale’s cry, so close, yet so far away. Even Dale is confused, unsure whom I am. “Caroline!”

My killer lowers me to the floor, smoothing out my dress. “Don’t look away from me or her, Dale. Don’t disregard the lesson.”

“What lesson?” Dale is very close, standing over my body. I can feel his shadow, trembling and filled with unreleased passion. 

I open my eyes. I see my husband take my lover into his arms. I see the bloody knife, covered with my blood moving towards the white of Dale’s shirt. My husband lets out a harsh grunt, thrusting the blade into my lover, once again releasing the red rain. 

Dale gasps and goes limp in my husband’s arms. 

“Now that’s not so bad.” How tender, how gentle Windom sounds. He pats Dale’s head, giving him one final embrace before he lays my lover down beside me. He arranges his body neatly next to mine so the two of us are the flattened parody of the top of a wedding cake. “You’re together now. I’ve brought you together.”

“Bringing them together never works.” Laura stands over our bodies, wearing her black gown. “You see a romance blossom between two people you love. You get out of the way, trying not to trample upon it. Only the romance is never what you hoped for. It’s certainly not what they hoped for.” She dropped down on her knees beside me. “She has all these hungry illusions of heroism about him, illusions she cherished watching him try to save you, but he can never live up to them. He’s just a man.” 

Each word came out garbled and strange, a parody of speaking. Why can’t we speak here? Why can’t we get our words out? Why do they come to us at times and struggle to escape from our throats at others? It almost hurts, speaking at those moments, as if the words themselves defied clarity. 

“He could become so much more than a mere man.” Windom Earle gazes down with such tenderness at our faces, especially Dale’s, only I’m no longer lying on the floor. 

I’m standing up. I’m Annie again. It’s not Dale Cooper lying bleeding on the black and white lightning pattern beneath our feet. It’s Fox Mulder, Fox as he might look as a man, wearing a similiar suit to Dale’s. Beside him is a woman with short red hair, also dressed in a suit, looser and more comfortable than his. 

A woman’s suit does look more comfortable at that moment. Perhaps it allows you to be more comfortable. Perhaps you can be things you never could in the man’s suit. 

I’m not sure if these are my thoughts or the thoughts of Fox’s doppelganger, standing beside me, looking down at the couple. “Partners. Collect the set, create a doppelganger. Only I don’t want to be him.”

He’s not Fox at second glance. His hair is slicked back, he’s carrying himself differently. Only that’s not enough. The doppelganger snaps his fingers. He’s a woman now or is he? His hair is longer, below his shoulders curling and he wears a brown suit with a skirt. Yes, he looks more at ease in that outfit. He grins and winks at me before he disappears. 

“I do.” Dale stands where Fox’s doppelganger was, dressed in his black suit, smiling a cruel smile. An unnatural green light fills his eyes. “I want Dale Cooper. I want to be him.”

No, it’s not Dale. I can hear Dale, crying out my name beyond the drapes. I can hear them rustle with his movement as he pulls back layer after layer. 

The other Dale hears him, too. He flares his nostrils at the sound of Dale’s movement, he inhales, catching Dale’s scent. I can smell the doppelganger’s anticipation, anticipation of the chase, the hunt, the capture. 

No. I have to stop him. I have to warn Dale. Only I’m lying bleeding on the floor again, unable to move. 

Please, someone. Hear me. Answer me. 

The other Dale walks past me to push aside the drapes, walking towards my Dale. He’ll take him, I know. He’ll catch him. 

“This has always been their plan.” Laura lies next to me, naked, covered with a thin sheen of plastic. “He solved the riddle of my murder and they gave him clues, but there’s always a price. Their price is your Dale’s time and his company.” She smiles a ghastly smile of dead blue lips. “They want him. Don’t you see? They want him here. They’ve developed a taste for F.B.I. agents.” She changed, becoming a similar girl with dark hair. “They keep commiting crimes, not only for the creamed corn (pain and suffering), but to lure them here. One. By. One.” 

She closes her eyes and opens them. She’s no longer lying on the floor. She’s in bed, a warm, breathing blonde girl with a diary sitting on the table nearby. I’m lying in the bed right next to her. 

Is it truly Laura Palmer alive again? Or have I gone back to a time when she was alive? 

One chance out. I turn, aware that I’m bleeding, still wearing Caroline’s dress, but I speak. Hoping she’ll listen. This time my words come out normal. 

“My name is Annie. I’ve been with Dale and Laura. The good Dale is in the Lodge and cannot leave. Write it in your diary.”

I close my eyes even as she closes hers. I feel my mind, my body, my everything being drawn back. Back to the world beyond the red drapes.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm fascinated by the doppelgangers in the Twin Peaks universe. I really wanted to play with it. This gave me an opportunity to have Denise Bryson and Fox Mulder in the same story or perhaps I should say vision? I was also fascinated by the love/hate relationship Windom Earle had with Dale Cooper and his wife. I decided to explore that, too. The words Annie says at the end are directly from the movie, 'Fire Walk With Me'. I could almost sense a story behind her cameo appearance, which decided to explode into fanfiction.


End file.
